Yesterday I was allowed to see a private collection of American Presidency memorabilia owned by a University of Houston professor. It was incredible- 30,000 items! This old professor had the entire first floor of his house full of campaign collectibles, mainly from 20th century Presidents. Basically, I was a kid in a candy shop.
A few things caught my eye, but perhaps the most interesting was this pamphlet from Reagan's 1980 run. In answer to the question "Women's Rights- Who Cares?", Reagan and the Republican Party said more or less: "we care." The pamphlet was mainly about prohibiting discrimination against women in the workplace.
What's interesting looking back in 2023 is, there is NO mention of abortion as a women's right in the pamphlet. Equal opportunities to men are considered, but not special group rights that only women would have. That is consistent with an individual rights approach.
One explanation for the silence on women having a right to an abortion is that Republicans disagreed that there really was such a right. Reagan would later explain in a 1983 booklet, "Abortion & the Conscience of the Nation," that his thinking had changed to a firm support for the right to life for the unborn. (For those who knew the great man: our friend, Claremont Professor Mike Uhlmann, helped Reagan with the drafting of that booklet).
In 2023, the first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when the term “Women’s rights” is mentioned is a right to abortion. It was not always so- perhaps not even in 1980, after Roe had taken place. When did that conceptual drift happen exactly, I wonder?
And what propaganda in our media might have influenced the shift, is the next question.
UPDATE:
For an example of a politician supporting women’s rights but not supporting abortion, I can offer my own grandfather John O’Hare as exhibit A. He ran as a Democrat for state office in the 1960s, even helped out with JFK’s campaign in Texas, but was and has always been 100% pro-life. Interesting to see what a Democrat ran on back then:
Good observation, CJ! Let me add some confirmation from pop culture -- there are almost no famous movies or TV shows that involve abortion. It's almost impossible to put in front of an audience, however many liberals want it, including artists.
The attempt is being made now to change that, but I'm not sure there'll ever be a female protagonist in a popular spectacle who is defined by aborting her child...